#i love him but the version i love is entirely invented in my head

[ditzyblues]

rottmnt hot take

gun to head ask me to name 5 casey jr personality traits. EVERYBODY DEAD!!

[kekaki-cupcakes]

hello!! Hope you’re doing well!!

could you please do a Leo x mortal reader cafe au like the Connor stoll one? And could the reader be a Greek mythology nerd also please have a little brother who she’ll randomly quiz about the Olympian gods?

have a nice day 😚😚

heyyy i didn't get your whole request in but i got the vibe dw and also kind of made a moodpboard for it cause I loved the whole aesthetic and no one requests mood boards <3 LISTEN TO EXPRESSO BY SABRINA!

Leo Valdez x Reader--- cafe au

»»————-　★　————-««

“Hello,” you said, looking up from your screen for a millisecond, “what can I get you today?”

When whoever it was ordering didn’t respond, you raised an eyebrow, hand hovering over the digital menu. The boy frowned at the screen above your head where it listed all the different drinks. He had the nicest brown curls, you noticed, and looked back down before he caught you staring. 

He tapped his fingers quickly on the counter. Sabrina Carpenter's new song was playing over the cafe speakers. It sounded like summer.

“How many espresso shots are you legally allowed to put in one drink?” The boy asked with a crackly voice. He had dark smudges under his eyes. And on his hands. Huh. You really needed a camera to look into at times like this, for comedic effect. Like the office.

“About six,” you said, dropping your customer service voice with a shrug, and opened up a new order on the tablet, your bracelets jingling. “What can I get you today?” 

You loved your bracelets. Some were from that second hand store down the street full of goths and grandmas where you’d bought yet another version of the Odyssey yesterday, and the rest were from your little brother. 

You never admitted it to anyone, but he’d made them based on all your favorite Greek gods. The ones you were wearing today had pomegranate seed charms and antler horn patterns.  

His eyes widened considerably. They were brown. And sparkly. “What happened to your voice?”

You squinted at him. Someone else came into the cafe with three little dogs stuffed into their giant handbag. 

“That was my customer service voice.” Your brain was finally receiving enrichment in messing with this cute greasy boy. You put it on again, paired with a fake smile. “What can I get for you today?” 

He chuckled, and hitched a giant canvas tote bag over his shoulder. There was a giant inked cat with butterfly wings on it, and a long metal pipe sticking out the back. You had a feeling this boy would steal your name if he got ahold of it, or trap you in a ring of flowers deep in a forest.

“Uh,” he trailed off, and then winked, scrunching up his entire face. “Surprise me.”

You blinked at him. How entirely helpful. You watched him pull an entire fucking old fashioned pocketwatch out of his pocket to check the time. 

Medium was the most commonly ordered size of drink, so you selected that, and then a caramel latte with whipped cream. You had that knack that every person in your generation seemed to have been born with. 

Selecting random objects and flavors to match someone’s vibe precisely. You just happened to be a barista. 

For instance, this talkative sleep deprived boy was rocky road slices with peanuts in them, and torn open sugar packets, and caramel. Your coworker, Lou Ellen, who was wiping down tables behind the handbag dog man, was those butterfly shaped ice-cubes and home brewed black coffee from a saucepan and dragon fruit juices.                            And that thick book on Greek mythology she’d bought you for your birthday last year [she’d nicked it from the library and peeled the sticker off]. 

“Four dollars and sixty cents,” you said patronizingly, in your customer service voice. He grinned like you had just invented the funniest inside joke ever, and handed over five dollars in fifty cents coins.

“Keep the change.”

You printed out the receipt and reached for a medium sized cup and the ballpoint pen from a uni campus open day, after pocketing the generous tip of forty cents and a paperclip. 

What a gentleman. “Name?” 

“Leo Valdez, super sized Mcshizzle, bad boy supreme,” Leo Valdez super sized Mcshizzle bad boy supreme said happily, as one of the handbag dogs escaped the bag and started chewing on his laces. 

You desperately needed that camera to look into now. You should be the star of a sitcom at this point, with you as the tired main character dealing with silly customers while desperately longing to go home and read your books, Lou Ellen as the hilarious trashy best friend, Will [your coworker who was currently taking out the trash] as the angry bisexual lumped with the night shift crew, and your little brother, who would pop in at random times in each episode to deliver the punchline.  

Instead of letting the credits roll, unfortunately, you scribbled out an unintelligible scrawl to represent the complete nonsense you were supposed to instead. Your smile was strained this time. “I’ll call you when it’s ready.”

Leo [you assumed that was his name] beamed. “Thanks!”

It was only as you frothed the milk and tried not to burn your fingertips on the spout did you realize that the song was still going. Lou must’ve looped it, as she did with every song ever until she got sick of it and hated it. 

You nodded your head and tipped the bubbling milk into the cup, reaching for the tube of caramel sauce. “Soft skin and I perfumed it for ya, I know I Mountain Dew it for ya.” 

“That morning coffee, brewed it for ya.” You rolled your eyes to no one and tipped the extra caramel sauce into it. It was ten o'clock at night, and your shift had just started. Morning coffees meant college students rushing in at two a.m. so they could finish their projects. 

You shook up the whipped cream. “One touch and I brand-newed it for ya.” 

One of the most satisfying parts of your job, apart from spinning around and introducing yourself as the manager [you are not the manager] when someone demands to see the manager [who comes in once a month, looks around, and leaves again], is the whipped cream. The sound of it and the little pattern it makes just itches a scratch. 

You smile as you finish the swirl, which sinks into the cup of espresso shots and caramel milk. You spin around, “now he’s thinkin’ ‘bout me every night, oh…”   

“Is it that sweet? I guess so,” you hum under your breath, and ducking the spray bottle Lou Ellen launches over your head, you stick a straw in the cup and walk to the bench, where Will’s serving the man with three purse dogs a jelly donut. 

Leo’s digging through his bag while you wait, not bothering to rush him and leave the 24/7 rip off starbucks diner empty. 

You pick up the pen and take the lid off with your teeth, doodling a little cat on the blank bit of the cup. The tail comes out all wrong, and one of the whiskers slides halfway around on the plastic with a scratchy sound. 

You add rushed fairy wings to its soft looking back, and hand the cup over as Sabrina Carpenter sings about being a singer. Her voice is so pretty. Like caramel. “There you go.”

Leo grinned at you, and while you watched in absolute horror, proceeded to pour an entire monster energy drink he’d pulled from his tote bag into the perfectly made coffee. 

“Excuse me?” you whisper shrieked. 

He blinked at you owlishly, and you tried not to notice how warm his eyes looked in the vintage yellow lights of the shop that made everything seem seventies. “What?”

“That’s enough caffeine and chemicals to give a water buffalo a heart attack,” you said, pointing at his awful concoction. It started to fizz. You wondered if the building had chemical reaction insurance.

“I’ve got a lot of work to do,” Leo shrugged, and picked up his cup happily. He looked down at it, and a grin split across his face. “I got a drawing!”

»»————-　★　————-««

It was only a few days later when the bell rattled quietly by the door and you looked up to see Leo and smiled despite yourself, fingers tapping on the cup in your hand, wear the ring you’d made from that paperclip sat, did you realize what role he would play in your heart shaped ice-cubes Sabrina Carpenter soundtracked paperback books late night set ballpoint pen sitcom.

The love interest. 

»»————-　★　————-««

[superawesome40]

Wayne Children Timeline Update

Okay, so I’ve hit a standstill on the timeline. I’ve got (most) significant not-hero-related details worked out (I think???) and I’m working on education/jobs right now, but there is SO MUCH from canon that I could pick from, and I’m honestly a bit overwhelmed. Anyone want to help me out?

Enjoy me spiraling into madness as I attempt to introduce the events that I’m probably going to include:

Dick

The Slade/Deathstroke story line, probably heavily warped to fit the storyline.

Talon/The Court of Owls. I love those funky dudes, but I admit I only really know them ‘cause of the rhyme.

Spyral? Maybe? Honestly I have NO IDEA what Spyral is at all, and I’ll need to investigate more.

I’m on the fence about including the whole Catalina Flores storyline. I’ve heard about it in passing, but I haven’t actually done any research into it yet. It’s a VERY sensitive topic, and I don’t want to mishandle anything, especially if I ever get around to writing stories set within this universe.

I think Dick being a cop at some point is really, really funny, so I might have him join the Bludhaven (Blüdhaven?) PD for a bit? So he can take them down from the inside or something. He quits after like. Two years.

Jason

The Catherine Todd/Sheila Haywood/Willis Todd… situation.

Whacking the scary man with a tire iron (was that one ever even a question? Of course I’m including it)

League bodyguard for baby Damian (I’m pretty sure this one is fanon, but it’s my AU, I do what I want!!!)

Heads in a duffle bag

Titans Tower attack.

I’ve heard something about magic fire swords maybe, but I’m not sure.

This is making me realize I know… very little about what Jason got up to after his revival.

Cass

Huh. I don’t really have anything to put here? I know next to nothing about Cass outside of her involvement in the Batfam. Send help.

No like actually. What does she do? I love her character, but this post is making me realize that I don’t actually KNOW them.

Tim

Stalker baby stalker baby stalker baby stalker baby

Joker Jr.! I dunno, I really like the idea of JJ being like a completely different entity who lies dormant in Tim’s head and pops up from time to time? It inspired a story where Tim has several versions of himself living up in his head. I invented an entire disorder for it: Fragmented Personality Disorder. Probably won’t be a thing in this AU, but either way. JJ is DEFINITELY happening.

Young Justice is morally gray at best and they try very hard to pretend like they aren’t. (Young Justice is actually the only comics I’ve read, and I’ve only read up to like. Issue # 6 so far. I love my little dudes so much.)

Off topic, but will someone explain coffee Tim vs. energy drink Tim? Can’t he just combine the two with an ass load of sugar and call it a day?

Spleen.

Highest kill count. Don’t care if it’s canon. He has the highest kill count, he’s not sorry, and he WILL do it again.

I don’t know why the idea of Conner, Cassie, Tim, and Bart running around space completely unsupervised is so funny to me, but it is. Is it canon? Don’t ask me, I have no idea. Is it in this AU? Absolutely.

Again. What does he get up to? Robin era, Red Robin era, anywhere? Anything significant happen? At all???

Duke

Uhhhhhhhh.

I know about his parents. That’s definitely happening.

We Are Robin? What is We Are Robin? Is it pre-Batfam? Post-Batfam?

Wait was he Signal before or after he was a Bat?

Is he a Bat?

I COULD do my research. Or I could do the lazy thing and make you all do it for me :)

Damian

This is the little bastard that dragged me kicking and screaming into the DCU. This is all his fault.

Fun fact! I hated anything and everything to do with DC purely because I was introduced to Marvel first. I thought it was dumb, and poorly written, and a cheap knock off of Marvel. This was back when I only knew about like, Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. I didn’t even know that the Flash was DC at this point. Then I found out about Damian and… well, it all spiraled from there.

So anyways, let’s see.

Killed by the Heretic? Yup.

Metal spine? Absolutely.

Dick Grayson’s Robin? Without a doubt.

Hmmm what else…

What happened in Super Sons?

Uh

What did he get up to with the Titans (?) That was a thing, right?

Wasn’t there a murder island story arc? Maybe? And he died for like, a minute but then he came back?

Also Damian and Tim attempt to murder each other as a ✨bonding activity✨

Bruce

Don’t even get me started on freaking Bruce. I dread the day I finally get up the courage to start looking into Bruce.

So yeah. Send help? Suggest your favorite fight/monster/comic for me to research? Please, I’m begging you. Doesn’t matter the universe, or the era, or whether it’s pre-Crisis or Earth 1 or whatever other million ways there are to break them down (I still have to look into those, too.), anything you think should be on the timeline, let me know and I’ll look into it.

[nellie-elizabeth]

The Legend of Vox Machina: Cloak and Dagger (3x07)

My heart hurts! I've been waiting to get here!

Cons:

Small thing: I feel like I haven't heard anyone calling Keyleth by her full name all season! It's like... always Kiki. I liked that better when it was an occasional thing.

Big thing: What was that song at the end, when Vex is running to Percy? Like... that is the first time the music on this show has missed hard, and it's such a bummer that it happened over such an intense moment. I was scratching my head wondering how they could have ended up with such a tonally awkward and lyrically basic song here. They've always been so good about the music in the past! The song felt symptomatic of something I was noticing throughout this episode, that the dialogue was a little too on the nose and didn't allow for the audience to come to its own conclusions. Everything with Ripley and her motivations, and Percy choosing mercy over vengeance, it just felt a little more one-note than I would have expected, and that song was the capstone to it all in the worst possible way. It may be the single thing in this entire show so far that I've liked the least. A big, big miss in my opinion.

So like, there's this category of "criticisms" that I think everyone has about this show that isn't actually "this was bad" but more like "there was a very specific vibe or moment from the campaign that I loved, and this new version means I won't get to see it." And it's all a personal preference thing. There are a million little moments that weren't particularly precious to me, and so seeing them get altered didn't faze me in the slightest. But to someone else, that particular character beat might have been one of their favorite moments. For me, I think the big thing about Percy's death that they changed isn't a bad narrative difference for this particular show, but I do have to shout it out. I miss this being more of a group vibe, a group grieving, a group effort against Ripley. I will always remember the "Vox Machina, how do you want to do this?" the solemnity of Matt's voice, the way the group took on that mantle of vengeance from Percy in order to avenge him, because he was their friend and they loved him.

Now, we may still get that in some way, seeing as Anna is still alive? But the entire vibe of Glintshore, the stakes and the combat with the area of effect spells and the entire group unable to take her down in time to stop her from going after Percy... it's really just one of my favorite combats that the campaign ever did, and I'll never forget the way it made me feel to watch it! So again, this isn't a "what the show did was bad" complaint, it's a "this was one of those episodes in the campaign that I would have loved to see play out the way it always is in my head, from back in the day, and I don't get to have that. Oh well."

Pros:

But honestly, setting aside that weird as fuck song choice, I did still think this episode kicked some major ass. These people know how to make good TV and I cannot deny that.

Anna Ripley's backstory to start things off was I think a really smart move. Not just in the sense that giving villains a tragic backstory is the only way to make them more complex, but specifically as a way to underline the Percy and Ripley parallels. This could have been Percy. This was the life path Percy was on. His family dead at the hands of mages, and a burning desire to make the people who hurt him pay for what they've done. Orthax, the invention of fire arms, all of that: it comes from a place of deep bitterness and resentment. How is it fair that some people get to have all the power in this world? Why not make the playing field a little more even? It's not a good idea, but the perspective is totally reasonable and you understand why Anna would be seduced by this life, and why Percy, if he hadn't met Vox Machina when he did, might have become the same thing. Also! Was that a Trent cameo?? Man, I'm excited for the Mighty Nein show.

This season has been so focused on the romances, which I love, but I'm glad that we still get little beats of friendship and other relationships tossed in here. Since there's not a lot of time in each episode to cover the extensive plot and all the character beats, the show leans on very small indicators of this group and how their banter and friendship operates. We have Pike being a little dork about the investigation stuff, and Vax saying how cool it sounded. We have Vax with the nicknames, always. And then we have the more angst-y stuff. I really liked that even in the midst of a Percy/Vex focused episode, when Vex was first influenced by the mind-altering gas, she's hearing her mother, and she's calling out for Vax. Vax is her person, and has been for a long time. We get these hints of sad twin backstory here that I think are important setup for what's to come with the dragons, but also continue Vex's thread of being afraid that her love is dangerous. And then more angst when Pike wakes Grog up from his hallucinations and she's weakened by using her magic, and Grog says "Pike? Did I hurt you again?" Like... rip my heart out, my dude! That was so sad!

What is going on with Pike, though? It's so interesting to have this new plot thread just completely added to the story and weaving in with all these moments. She's got her Vestige, but now when she reaches for the Everlight, it's... something else, coming forward within her. She ends up using some sort of... devilish red spell to wake her friends up, something we're meant to understand in contrast to her usual Everlight healing magic. Also, got to see Zerxus being a sinister reminder of all that we do not yet know about Pike, so that was really cool!

But let's talk about the Percy and the Vex of it all. I love how just utterly and completely down bad he is for her, and how much he wants to find a way to make both of them happy. It's so interesting, because you'd think Percy would be just as angst-y and avoidant about love as Vax has proven to be this season, but on the other hand, this trajectory gels more with what we saw in the campaign. Percy knows his darkest inclinations, he knows the kind of man he has been and might become again. But he also knows he wants to be better, he wants to be happy, and he's not afraid to lean into the things that are helping, the things that make him grounded and successful at keeping that darkness at bay. It's refreshing for such a character type not to go ten rounds being too miserable to allow themselves to be happy. That's what we have Vex's insecurities for, in the end!

That "I'm in love with you" scene, with the sunlight washing over Vex's face? Contrasted with her broken cry of "No!" as she runs to Percy and cradles him in her arms... I mean, some A+ acting from Laura Bailey and some A+ work from the animators. They really sold me on Vex's whole messy avoidant deal. Every word out of her mouth in this episode was such delicious irony for those of us who knew what was coming, as she's talking about how Scanlan will tease her, Keyleth will call her a hypocrite, and Vax will... well, the implication is that Vax will beat up Percy for being with Vex, which is SUCH a fascinating little detail. Because, well, Vex has to know that's not true! She's banking on an earlier and incomplete version of their sibling relationship, this idea that her protective brother Vax will always stand in the way of other people's interference in their lives. But Vax has grown past that, and Vex is well aware. And then Percy is probably just sitting there going... "but in that very awkward hot tub scene, Vax basically gave me his blessing!" I loved the beat where the rest of the gang is looking on at Percy and Vex and rolling their eyes about how obvious it is that the two of them have been hooking up. Even Grog has not been fooled in the slightest.

Percy really gets to complete a journey of self-actualization here as he rejects Ripley's offer and then refuses to kill her, really cementing his turn away from vengeance. He wants to do the right thing. He wants to prove to himself and to the world that recovery and redemption is possible, even after terrible harm. It's so beautiful because in the last episode Percy was talking about how all he wants is to have a life in Whitestone, and then Whitestone is razed to the ground. And then here he just wants a chance to keep growing and changing and getting better, and that is seemingly stolen from him as well. But Percy is a good man and he's brave and he'll keep fighting for what's right, even when everything goes wrong around him. We love him for that!

Combat-wise, we have to talk about what a COOL battle sequence the Ripley (and Orthax) vs. Percy showdown was. I love the steam-punk-y vibes of these characters, I loved the red and black, I loved seeing Orthax taking over Anna the way we saw him taking over Percy in season one. I loved Percy jumping and tumbling around to escape from things and saying "Vax makes that look so easy." I loved him using his gauntlet "Diplomacy" to turn a handshake into an attack - that's the most Percy thing I can think of. And I love that he gets to be a bad-ass, he does the trick with the black powder, and then... No Mercy Percy does just the opposite of what his name implies, and he tries to offer Anna another chance.

It's such a tragic and poignant moment, and despite my personal mourning for certain aspects of Glintshore that didn't play out like they did in the campaign, I thought this was a wonderful moment of storytelling, and a truly tragic ending to the episode! Percy combines his true genius and cunning with a radical type of openness and hope. He truly is a Character of All Time for me.

So... yeah, this might be an episode that has some polarizing feelings from fans. I can imagine a lot of people a tiny bit outraged that Anna Ripley is alive and gets away again here at the end of the episode, which was frankly very much not what I was expecting. As for me, I had a great time watching this episode, and I will just do my best to forget that weird song at the end ever existed.

8/10

[stormingfrost]

How I think Bill Cipher would react to the rotg characters 

Jack- 

He’d see Jack the same he does Mabel: a chaos agent who likes to have fun no matter the cost and who’s a little bit selfish. I think that Bill would think (wrongly) that Jack actually doesn’t care about kids at all, but needs the company of children + the Guardians for validation, to soothe his loneliness, and to feel belief. I can see Bill trying to make a deal with Jack, using the appeal of being liked and seen, but Jack doesn’t accept. Jack doesn’t like Bill from the get-go. Jack would throw a snowball in his eye and steal his hat. 

Pitch- 

They’d try to manipulate each other. They’d both think they are winning a game but get absolutely nowhere in the process. Bill would see Pitch as someone who’s a boring and melodramatic version of himself. I don’t think they’d like each other but could team up for convenience. They’d probably like each other for superficial reasons, like how they inflate each other’s ego and, naturally, world domination. Bill would comment on Pitch being defeated by a bunch of children and pretend to not have also been defeated by a bunch of children. Pitch knows Bill’s biggest fears and Bill sees into Pitch’s mind. Pitch would take a deal with him if Bill could convince Pitch that he could help take down the Guardians. Otherwise, Pitch would be too wary of a deal and thinks Bill is annoying. They see each other in the dreamscape occasionally but stay away. 

Tooth- 

He hands her deer teeth and is confused and slightly delighted that she loves teeth. She’s chaotic in a way that Bill genuinely likes, and it frustrates him that she is someone who doesn’t want the world to end and won’t be a part of his crew. She knows about Bill because of her ability to see into memories. She is cold and distant to him. She wouldn’t knowingly make a deal with Bill, but I can see her doing what Mabel did when Bill used Blendin to start weirdmageddon. 

Bunny- 

He hates Bill. Just so much. Bill calls him annoying nicknames (the real reason Bunny got so upset at Jack teasing him.) Bill thinks that the entire concept of Bunny - the bipedal rabbit, the eggs, the holiday - is just absolutely hilarious. Bill has stolen multiple candy eggs. Bunny is just tired of Bill’s shit and went the metal-plate-in-head route and has enjoyed peace since. Bill is convinced that when he gets weirdmageddon, he’ll get Bunny and taxidermy him. 

North-

Bill would take one look at him and develop a complex. He would see North as a less gullible Ford. He’s inventive, intelligent, and just weird enough. Also has a physical difference like Ford (It’s canon that North is a “human giant,” but my hc is that he has gigantism.) Bill pops into his dreams every once in a while to try and talk to him. North laughs him off every time. Bill would try and get him to build a portal, but North is not receptive to Bill at all. Bill has nothing North would want or need. And, his belly had a bad feeling about it. 

Sandy- 

While Bill is a dream demon, Sandy is a dream spirit. Bill despises Sandy because he can beat his ass whenever Sandy finds him in the dreamscape. It’s hard to get to anyone with Sandy breathing down his neck. The Guardians get Sandy to banish Bill from their minds. Sandy would be old enough to know about Bill’s home and see his dreams. Bill can’t find anything he could use against Sandy as he can with Pitch, so Bill tries to avoid Sandy as much as possible. 

[a-dumb-sarcastic-bisexual]

Hey.... Heyyyyyy.... How y'all doing.... take the Nimona headcanons that have been rotting in my notes app for the past four months

Ambrosius has kept track of the weirdest things he’s signed for a fan

At the very tippy top is a dinner plate a dog crate and a baby

And by baby I do mean living breathing crying baby

He tried really hard to find something else to sign but for some reason the parents were really insistent on it being their baby

And for some reason he did it

There are hundreds of photos of this infant with a signature on his forehead 

And that kid to this day will whip out his baby photos and show people that he was that baby 

Multiple knights (cough cough Todd) tried to recreate that situation but it didn’t have the same effect 

I feel like Bal gets really bad migraines (which kind of comes with the territory of using your head like a bartering ram) 

And when they do happen Nimona and Ambrosius do everything in their power to make sure that it doesn’t get worse 

I feel like Ambrosius is stupidly good at video games 

I have this little headcanon that books and games were kind of an escape for him

His own personal little oasis from being the golden child with a million expectations and responsibilities on his back 

He's not very good at playing with other people tho because he was always scared people would figure out who he was just based on his voice alone (and he’s not wrong for thinking that)

Nimona is also really good at video games (I mean she’s also half of the reason they were invented but that’s a long ass story) 

So because I’ve been away for so long I wanted to bless you with my friend's reaction to the movie

Just for some context tho it did take us months to finish because we all have work and school and we couldn’t see each other for a while so if I missed some stuff I’ll add it later

“Aw boyfriends” (When they were on the catwalk)

“Why are they so cute” “they’re literally my otp” and “they have cute banter” (The entire time before the knighting ceremony)

JB: “Oh she’s got Daddy issues huh” Me: “why do you say that?” JB “cause why else would she follow a man”(As they’re walking through the kingdom)

JB: “God what a fake fucking bitch I hate the way she talks” (As the director is scolding the knights)

“He knows him so well”(He hates freestyle jazz)

“It’s his boyfriend” “aw bae why’d you throw a smoke bomb at me” “look how frantic he is to find him” “he can’t shoot look at that face” (the entire subway/market scene”) 

JB: “I think this scene is curing her daddy issues and yours” (the alley scene)

(Same scene) KO: “why is he acting like it’s hurting him more?” Me: “Cause that’s his kid” KO: “wow this really is healing your daddy issues” 

JB: “What am I even watching?” “I fucking knew it she was such a fake bitch” (The squires video) 

“Oh my god he’s so embarrassing” “is he really jealous of a kid” “oh my god the director really doesn’t give a fuck huh?” “He didn’t say that out loud” “but does she?” “No” (Ambrosius freak out) 

JJ: “oh my god this is like Archane” Me: “shut the fuck up about Archane” (in my defense he kept mentioning Archane the whole time)

“If I could turn into a dragon I’d never turn back” “same I’d love to breathe cereal” (during the fight) 

“He’s so embarrassing why is he dying that dramatic” (proceeds to make fun of Ambrosius' “death” the whole time) 

“Did they really upload her confession to their version of YouTube” “is his account name really BalliSTAR?” “Why are they dancing?” “His username is Loins_of_gold? Why is he such a dork??” 

JB: “Awe nachos are totally their thing” “he remembered he’s allergic he still loves him!” 

JJ: “he’s a knight?” Me “have you been watching this movie with your eyes closed?” 

And then we freaked out about Ambrosius saying I love you and Bal not saying it back 

We said nothing when Bal pulled a sword on Nimona they kind of just sat shocked 

JB kept mentioning the flashback and after it happened all I said was “you wanted the flashback there’s your fucking flashback” while she sat in sad silence

They also just kept saying in shock “that’s her? That’s Gloreth” while I laughed 

We kind of spent the rest of the movie in silence until Bal and Ambrosius kissed at the end and then everyone collectively lost their shit

They lost their shit again when Nimona showed back up and JB went upstairs because even tho Nimona came back to life she was still sad

[mama-qwerty]

WIP Wednesday

Lookit! I remembered two weeks in a row! WOOOO

Today's WIP bit is from the unintentional second chapter of the kaiju fic. I started it yesterday and am about 2400 words in. I have no idea if I'll finish it, but I've been having some other ideas pop into my head for it, so maybe it'll turn into (yet another) multi-chapter fic?

This one is from Knux's pov.

Read the whole thing on ao3!

~~~~~

Six months.

It’d been six months since Knuckles returned to his planet. Since those bastard versions of his friends yanked the cracked chaos emerald from his eyes and tossed him through a portal back to his original world. The pain had been excruciating, both from the removal, and the way his body shrank and reverted to a mortal form.

Not his original form. No. He’d been in the kaiju form too long for that.

But a mortal form. One that didn’t heal almost instantly from injuries. One that didn’t mutate and reshape itself to be even more deadly, more efficient at killing. At destroying.

One that wasn’t as painful, every second of every day.

There was still pain. There would always be pain. He was sure of that. His joints ached. His back. His head. But it wasn’t as sharp or jagged as when he was a monster.

He was blind now. The first shard had done that when he’d transformed the first time. When a shard took control, it usually migrated to the eye socket, essentially taking a front row seat to piloting the body. He’d had a kind of funhouse mirror vision when it had been there. Everything looked crooked and stretched, tilted and angular. It hurt his head, and only fed the anger inside. The rage.

Of course, the twisted version of Amy that had apparently been shrunken and hidden in his ear, whispering doubts and feeding his insecurities didn’t help matters. It was her voice, disguised as his own, that made him question himself in the weeks leading up to that fateful day. That urged him on in the kaiju form, commanding him to kill. To destroy.

She’d spurred his rage, taking delight as he destroyed the city he so loved. Every town and village he’d come across. Everything in his path had been rendered to splinters. To ash. To death.

Once she’d shown herself, he’d tried to end her, but she’d implanted something in his head that delivered painful shocks if he disobeyed. So he’d gone with her as she led him through a portal, to a twisted and insane version of Tails.

And together, they’d caused the same trail of death and destruction on other worlds. Other universes? He wasn’t entirely sure of the details. But he saw other versions of Sonic. Of Tails. Amy.

Himself.

It was strange and frightening, and he wanted to stop, didn’t want to hurt anyone, but the shards implanted in his eyes and the punishing shocks he received if he faltered made him move. Made him kill.

But after a while, he didn’t know how long, the rage inside him faded. Even the shocks and pain didn’t make him act. The false Tails had been angry with him, but then his lips curled into the twisted smile, before he pulled a device from his big box of horrible inventions.

“Aw, is the big boy too tired?” he’d said, his high-pitched voice cracking in that demented laugh he always had. “Tut, tut. Well then, if that’s the case, I guess I’ll just take what’s mine and let you go back to live out your pathetic little life. Doesn’t that sound fair?”

The Amy behind him had tittered. Even to Knuckles’ monstrous ears, she sounded insane.

Then there’d been pain. Literal, blinding pain. The twisted fox had pulled the two chaos emerald pieces from Knuckles’ eyes, resulting in a deafening, pain-filled roar before he’d gone to his knees. His body changed, shrinking and shriveling and tightening as the chaos energy within him faded.

And then they’d chucked him through a portal. He’d landed on the rubble remains of the city he had wanted so badly to protect.

It had been so quiet. So damned quiet.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d laid there. Shocked, trembling, and adjusting to having actual thoughts again. Ones that weren’t overshadowed by fear and rage and pain.

Once he’d realized where he was—the smell was the same—he’d picked himself up and contemplated his next move. He was home, but . . . everyone and everything he’d ever cared about, ever knew, was gone. What did he do now?

Scarlett.

Was she still alive? Would she even want to see him if she was? He’d done horrible things. Killed so many. What would she think of him?

Those questions had stalled him. But after a moment he’d shaken his head. He’d face those questions later. When . . . if he found her.

With a grunt, he’d turned and picked a direction to start walking.

His search began.

It had been hard. Without his eyes, he had to rely on his other senses. They’d stepped up, for the most part. His hearing was better. His sense of smell stronger. He could sense objects nearby, and he’d developed a kind of sense for other shard possessed creatures. Could sense the shards themselves, almost hear them. As if they called out to him.

He resisted that call. Now that he was himself again, he was absolutely not going to let the lure of some sliver of chaos emerald take control of him again.

He walked. He searched. He fought other shard possessed kaiju. Days passed. Weeks. Months. He wasn’t sure how many. It was hard to keep track.

And then, he’d smelled it. Smelled her.

They’d grown up together, as close as siblings, so her scent was as familiar as his own. Just a brief whiff of it, caught on the wind. His heart had given a hard thump in his chest, and he’d picked up the pace.

A dead kaiju. Recent, by the smell. And her scent was all over. A sharper edge to it—blood. He leaned down and sniffed the thing’s claws, tasting her scent on his tongue as he did so. It had injured her. Anger flared within him, and he resisted the urge to tear this corpse apart, a delayed retribution for it daring to hurt her.

Instead, he turned to follow the stronger scent of her.

Stronger. It was even stronger here. But, higher? Sounds from above him and he stepped back, waiting to catch more information before making a move. To be sure.

A thud and a pained grunt. A relieved sigh. Her scent reached him, stronger than ever.

It was her.

He let out soft grunt, and sensed her freeze.

Smelled her fear.

He didn’t move, trying to figure out what he should do. Could he speak, would his vocal cords even work? He wasn’t sure.

Before he could try, a screech from above. Another kaiju, a larger one, with two shards.

A fight. They’d moved too quickly for him to get involved, his lack of sight preventing him from knowing how to attack. He didn’t want to hurt Scarlett by accident.

But then she’d been down. Hurt. Helpless. And he’d acted.

That had been two months ago. Since then they’d been inseparable once more. Roaming the land, seeking food and shelter and any sign of anything good left.

They hadn’t found much.

Read it all on ao3

[danny-phantom-x-reader]

A Tucker request this time!

Reader giving or gifting Tuck an electronic bit! I was thinking of a newer version of his pdf, but it could just be scrap bits or older electronics that don't work and him using it to upgrade his own equipment.

- 💗 anon

AAHHHHH!!!!! Yes, I'm putting all the request on hold to do my first Tucker request! Also my first request that isn't about Danny, lol. Although, I do love writing for him

I'm not entirely sure what you're request means, but I tried my best!

I'm going to be honest- I didn't actually expect anyone to really care about Danny Phantom x Reader stories lol

He loves gifts; Especially gifts revolving around electric things

So, any gift would make him happy

Though, when you give him a Nokia, he's estatic

Until, you tell him it was your dad's and it stopped working, but you thought maybe he could find a use for it

And a use he did find

He was ecstatic to make it into one of his ghost hunting devices

He's really proud of it and wishes he could show you, but you don't know about the whole ghost thing

He loves nit nacks, so whenever you see something strange and unusual you instantly think about him

[Don't tell him that, because it'll go to his head]

Whenever Sam or Danny mention his cool invention [That he made with your thing], he'll start talking about you

God, he loves talking about you

"Okay, Tucker, we get it, you have a girlfriend." Danny says, while rolling his eyes

^ Tucker doesn't see this, because he's caught in a daydream about you. But if Tucker HAD noticed, he would of mentioned how Danny did NOT have a girlfriend

[tfyoulookingatgiuxs]

Happily ever after

Vampire!Eddie Munson x Princess!Reader

𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘: A usual day in the kingdom of Nyzeen. Winter was always cold but never as cold as this day, when chaos reigned, shedding a lot of blood but giving you a magical gift.

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: Angst, fluff, fem!reader, use of Y/N, drama, bad language, age gap, secret relationship, violence, blood, threats, invented events, violent themes and actions, vomiting, illnesses, murder, crying. (Attention! in this one-shot themes and characters invented by me will be explained, and it is not a continuation of any of my previous works.)

𝐀/𝐍: I said I'd bring back another one-shot about the vampiric version of Eddie in this fantasy world, and so I did! I love when I invent fantastic places and creatures, and I really like how I wrote this one-shot, I hope you like it too. Sorry for my english this is not my native language. Please support and reblog! Hope you enjoy this one. (DIVIDER NOT MINE)

The snow fell gently, coloring white the entire kingdom of Nyzeen. The cold was felt and obviously evil was always present to threaten your home. Many vampires have killed families and children who lived in the village, draining their blood and depriving them of their lives. Your father, the king, together with some soldiers went to clean up The Black Forest, eliminating as many vampires as possible.

Even if you wanted good in your kingdom you couldn't deny your concern for Eddie, as he was also one of those creatures and also your beloved.

It was all out of the ordinary, it's true. But your affection and love towards a mystical and deadly creature like Eddie was something you couldn't explain. He was everything you wanted in a man and certainly his dangerousness and his species didn't matter to you in the slightest.

You were wandering around the castle, it was late afternoon and there was a solitary air in the large walls. Your long ash-colored dress highlighted your beauty along with the ruby ​​jewelry. You looked at the large windows noticing the beautiful cold snow falling. You had left your rooms to move your legs a bit, you were tired of always staying in your room and you asked your mother if you could spend some time around the facility. She didn't deny it but still warned you to be careful, even though the castle was well protected, no one could assure you that they wouldn't get in somehow.

Your mother was now in her room sick, the cold had played a bad joke on her by making her catch a fever. The doctor said she would recover and that in the meantime she should stay in bed and eat only hot meals. Meanwhile, your father was becoming more and more obsessed with vampires. They were driving him crazy and he swore to God that he would exterminate every vampire scum on the earth. This big hatred of his was obviously justified, after all the vampires had killed his mother, or rather your grandmother. However, you couldn't fully understand his obsession with creating chaos. You wanted to tell him how all vampires weren't like that, and that there are good-hearted vampires, like your beloved Eddie.

You stopped in the middle of the long corridor feeling your head spinning and a sense of nausea come over you. You've been like this for at least a week, you didn't have a fever or anything but you felt slightly cold and ate little. You didn't say anything to anyone, you wanted to handle it yourself, you knew what would happen if you opened your mouth, you didn't want to stay in bed for days, so you decided that you would take care of yourself in your own way. Most likely you had eaten something that made you sick and even made you vomit, so you made sure to eat healthy meals and water from the Lake of the Three Fairies. Water which is said to be magical and governed by the three fairies, small creatures who give magic to the lake, in this water it cures and heals those who drink it. You remember when some time ago your father had taken it upon himself to fetch water from the lake to save your mother from serious injuries after the war against Lilith. The lake from here is quite far and full of dangers, it was not easy for him, but everything he did was not in vain and he managed to meet the fairies and ask them for permission to take water.

You placed a hand on your belly, slowly feeling the nausea go away after you took some deep breaths. Screams outside alarmed you and through the foggy glass of the window you saw some torches lit. The fire from those torches was blazing hot and people shouted something as a large black figure headed over the castle. You ran to see if your mother was okay. You didn't know what that thing was, but you hoped with all your heart that it hadn't entered the castle.

You were in front of the door and heard the sound of armor. You turned and saw your father "Y/N!" He hugged you and you looked at him "Father, are you okay?" He nodded "I came to see if you and your mother were okay" You released yourself from the hug "I'm fine. But, what was that thing?" You asked looking at your father's panting face, apparently he had run too much to reach you "He was a high-class vampire, we managed to hurt him but he managed to fly above the other floors of the castle. I ran to you straight away" you didn't said nothing, you just watched his movements as he took a deep breath "I'll take care of your mother, you lock yourself in your room, I'll send a guard to check on you" he said and you nodded "Yes father" You replied. Your father entered while you ran to your room.

A high-class vampire...

It couldn't be him.

High-class vampires are people who have been transformed and have taken in a large amount of blood over a hundred years, thus making them vampires with self-control but evil and ruthless personalities. Eddie was one of those, you were seriously afraid that he was seriously injured. You entered, slamming the door and what you saw left you speechless. Eddie lay bleeding on your balcony as he shivered from the cold.

You didn't think twice. You opened your balcony grabbing the vampire and dragging him into your room. It was freezing and the blood just flowed. His wings were also wounded but never as much as his stomach was torn by a blade stuffed with Verbena. You were panicking. Verbena was a powerful plant against species like them, if you didn't do something immediately he wouldn't survive. You sat him on the floor with his back against the wall. His eyes were closed but he was still breathing “Eds…” you whisper, placing a hand on his cold cheek.

No. I don't have to waste time. You thought. You stood up determinedly as you left your room running to your mother.

You were in front of her door, you prayed that your father wasn't there and so you opened the door, there was no one there. Your mother was sleeping peacefully on her bed and you immediately spotted the dresser. You got it. The water of the Lake of the Three Fairies. You couldn't have taken better medicine to heal his wound. You left unnoticed and as soon as you arrived in your rooms you opened the door to find a guard in front of the vampire, ready with his sword to cut off his head.

"Princess stand back, I will kill this beast in no time" he said as the vampire whimpered in pain.

The blood was on the floor and still spreading across your wooden floor. A horrifying scene. The sword filled with blood as dark as your jewels as you moved his body to the side getting closer to the vampire. Eddie had his hand on the wound, most likely trying to stop the bleeding.

“Eddie” you called out to him but he didn’t answer. You took the bottle and poured the water on his wound. Eddie groaned in pain, most likely burning but then he calmed down and you saw his wound heal itself. The bottle was empty, you had used it all. You had to be one hundred percent sure that the water would save him. You placed your hand on his chest feeling his heart beat. You let out a smile. But it was still freezing. You stood up past the guard's corpse and lit the fireplace in the center of your room with a match.

After a while the vampire woke up in your warm room with his stomach healed, as if he had never been hurt. Before him lay a dead guard wrapped in a blood-stained sheet and the floor apparently cleaned of the mess. You were cuddled up to him, giving him more warmth. The vampire's wings wrapped around you keeping you close, he understood that it was you who cured him and also killed the guard, he couldn't be more in love. You opened your eyes looking at him in that sweet and affectionate state "Hey..." You said and he smiled at you "Hey princess" You stroked his long brown curls "How are you feeling?"

“Better, thanks for being my knight” as a response you gave him a kiss which he immediately returned.

You wanted that sweet moment to last forever but then a loud noise made you jump on the spot "Y/N open the door!" your father was banging repeatedly on the sealed door of your bedroom “Fuck...” you cursed in a whisper, both of you jumping up. You looked at Eddie and now even with just one look you could communicate. He nodded, opening your balcony and flying away but not before saying, "I'll be right back."

"Y/N are you in there? Honey open the door please" your father begged again. You didn't answer and just stared at the wooden door while holding one of the Verbena swords.

The time had come...

Eddie returned after half an hour, dispatching the uncontrolled vampires before they arrived at the village and caused more trouble. It landed as usual on your balcony in your room, but no trace of you...

Indeed, the corpses had increased. Now three corpses lay on the ground, all royal guards "Y/N..." he said your name afraid of where you had gotten yourself.

He walked through the corridors of the castle noticing that the corpses of guards and Lady and Lord were on the ground. Eddie thought some other out-of-control vampire had attacked your castle and made a killing. But then he saw you...

You were on your knees while holding on to the sword, your father looking at you in amazement who was also armed. Your clothes were stained with blood and you were now enduring great nausea and vomiting, apparently your illness had not healed...

"My daughter...why are you doing all this? Has someone done something to you? Please tell me" Your father looked at your pain and couldn't point his sword at you, you were his daughter... "Honey, what's wrong with you? A vampire bit you? Did they hurt you? " He knelt in front of you admiring your gorgeous face. You wanted to get up, but you couldn't, the headache was strong and your strength was leaving you "You could never understand father..." You said in a weak voice as your hand lay on your belly "Why did you kill everyone Y/N? Did anyone put a curse on you? Explain it to me!" The man was on the verge of crying but you didn't respond.

Eddie, who had remained there watching the scene, made himself noticed by the king and the man remained silent for several seconds before saying "No..." then he looked at you, he had understood everything.

"Son of a bitch..." he took his sword back and Eddie was on his guard "It was you. You abused my daughter by making her your slave" he screamed at him but Eddie didn't move "You ruined her future, her life! And now I will make sure you suffer" he declared, positioning himself waiting for his move. Eddie however didn't move "Father..." you called him "No! You have been defiled by him Y/N. I promise you that I will get rid of that beast he created, even if it means hurting you... but I will save you my daughter" his words were unfortunately as you expected. He would never understand, and you certainly didn't expect him to, but you were very sorry.

He then pointed the sword at you and Eddie wasted no time, now blinded by rage. He jumped on the man and your father yelled "Eddie!" You screamed in fear as you tried in vain to get up. Eddie injured the man and then walked towards you trying to keep you standing. The headache was still present from too much effort, but the warmth of the vampire and his wings that protected both of you were enough to make you take deep breaths, calming you down and making that feeling of vomiting go away.

Your father was seriously injured and cried seeing you two so close. Your heart was about to break in two, you tried to move closer but Eddie's grip stopped you "It's okay" you said and he let you go. You knelt down and looked at your crying father's face "My daughter please don't let yourself be subjugated by him" you caressed his face "Your mother and I love you and you know this, so recover and save yourself from his clutches" you shook your head smiling as a few tears fell "I know father, I love you too. But I love him" the king was shocked "Of a vampire..." he continued to stare into your eyes "what a shame...my daughter is a witch" he said and your tears continued to fall "Go to hell-" he didn't have time to say anything else before you stabbed him with your dagger that until now you have hidden under your dress.

You were sad, but you knew it had to be done. You had always been afraid of getting to this point but you had to find the strength to keep going. Eddie hugged you from behind consoling you "It's okay princess..." your tears stopped after a while and together with Eddie you walked out of the castle.

The snow was always more beautiful as it was freezing. It reminds you of when your parents told you about your birth, one of the coldest days Nyzeen had ever felt. The inhabitants of the castle had been exterminated except for your mother. She was sick in bed, therefore an easy target, but if killing your father was difficult, your mother would have been impossible, you didn't kill her. You cut off one of her legs to prevent her from walking and therefore from doing anything. She wouldn't understand either, but you wanted to make her understand, she would learn to accept Eddie and that not all vampires were like Lilith, the devil's daughter and woman who had reigned over vampires for years and years, then defeated by your father.

"So, why did you exterminate everyone?" Right, Eddie still didn't know anything. "They saw you, they hurt you and I killed a guard to protect you. I could never justify myself" was your response as the darkness was about to arrive "That's all? Just beacuse you do a little murder? Don't lie to me princess, I know you're hiding something from me. You would never have done something so rash without a specific reason" you were in awe of how well he knew you and you smiled "It's true. I had to do it for you, for us" you confessed "For us? Well, I appreciate the thought princess but I don't think the two of us can live in such a huge castle. Not to mention that there are humans in the village who fear me, who knows how they will react when they discover that their princess has exterminated everyone" you kept a straight posture while the sunset was the most beautiful vision that nature had ever created "Don't worry of this. I will show the people of this village that your kind is not all as bad as they think, and that vampires can be good. You know, I don't mind hosting your trusted friends at the castle, as long as they behave properly" Eddie let out a chuckle "How kind for someone who has just committed mass murder, I love you every day that passes princess” he smirked and you blushed.

"In any case, I'll try to study the castle later. Back when Lilith ruled here I was minding my own business in the Black Forest" you approached looking at his chocolate brown eyes "I'm sure you will, otherwise how will you manage to get care of us if you don't even know where to go in the castle?” the vampire's face became confused "Us?" his smile widened showing him your hand on your belly “Seriously?” Eddie didn't seem to realize it yet "Yes Eds" the vampire smiled showing his fangs "Oh princess" he said happily kissing you passionately. You reciprocated hoping that kiss would never end.

This was everything you wanted. A beautiful life in the company of the man you loved. The life you had created for yourself would be turbulent and certainly taking care of your mother while trying to make her see reality would be difficult, same thing with the village, but you were ready. You would have faced the worst storms for your love and your future child. This was your happily ever after.

[maridiayachtclub]

i love Zenos FFXIV. i don't know if i like him but i love what he does as a character.

i love that you beat him in a fight and he's like "that was so good, nothing can ever compare. goodbye" and he dies and then he comes back but his body is being hijacked so he hijacks someone else and then he gets his body back and then he's like "actually I want another hit" and eventually you beat him in a fist fight and he dies again. that's so unnecessarily convoluted. i'm not entirely sure if his dying and coming back was supposed to be a fakeout, or a backpedal, or if it was the intention all along, and i think all three are effective interpretations of his role in the story.

it feels like whatever plan they had for him was written and rewritten repeatedly while the devs watched the playerbase the entire time so that they could gauge their reaction. like he ultimately owes his origin to Squenix's need to have an iconic FFXIV villain to put in Dissidia, but they hadn't invented Emet-Selch yet, so Zenos represents their first attempts at Mr. Marketable. there's so much going on, from his totally extra appearance (mile wide ass, mechanized golf club bag sword holster, Sephiroth-aping hair situation), to the way he's written as though he's practically alien to everything and everybody else in the story except for the protagonist, to the cartoonish saga of his death and return. some people think he's a good villain. some people even think he's sexy. i don't know if there's anybody that loves every single one of these qualities simultaneously.

i love that he can be read as a meta-commentary on the relationship people have with the genre. they could have written him in a thousand ways and they chose to have him show up and stare the player (not the warrior of light, the player) dead in the eyes and say "I don't give a fuck about any of this, I just want to kill things. Are you like me?" they tried to make him a mirror and they tried to make him a marketable figurine and they tried to make him their own version of kefka or sephiroth and they tried to make him beautiful and memorable and frightening and maybe even hot. instead of an excellent villain they designed an all-in-one swiss army knife of a narrative device, a solution massively over-engineered for the task at hand. he's a bluetooth-enabled refrigerator with a touchscreen computer mounted in the door. and yet for all his overreach, the story is so indelibly marred by his fingerprints, and those of his writers, that i cannot imagine how it could ever look without him.

every time he's on screen i go "ugh! THIS guy again" and put my hands on my hips and shake my head and roll my eyes at his antics. i did that the very first time i saw him.

[sciderman]

I won't lie, there's a centrain magic to reading comics, maybe it's because you have more control over the direction, speed, voices and music when reading over watching something, maybe it's how creative people can get with panel lay-outs, maybe it's all of those things along with the different art styles and way people express themselves through their comic runs, maybe it's the fact there's SO many of them and so many different runs, AUs, versions, solo-stories and characters that while not every comics is for everyone, there's A comics for everyone.

And it's something that only animation can come close to capturing, occasionaly some games because they can give us amazing set pieces and action and stylization through gameplay. But to me live action movies just miss the mark exept a few and even then i just enjoy the comics more.

I think one big thing for me is the narration, because it helps me relate to characters as someone who's thoughts are pretty loud and narration-like, and the fact it's ME who decides how i make the characters sound and talk rather than having to listen to someone else voice the character in a way that i feel isn't "right".

So i'd say personaly it's comics>>books (i like books, and i LOVE fanfics but the visual part stimulates my brain more) >>>animation>games>live action

i agree wholeheartedly! i don't know, i'm kind of in love with the comic medium. but i love writing, also. i just - i really don't like the passivity of animation and television - i need a lot more stimulation than that to get my brain working. i like all the brain work you have to do when you're reading words. and i love the challenge of pulling off "comedic timing" when you don't actually HAVE the dimension of time in your medium exactly - so you have to work with panelling, and you have to work with spacing in your writing - and it's just so sexy and more active for the brain. like you're inventing a language.

comedy writing in comics is so, so fulfilling because you're a comedian, but your format is visual. you need to rely on visual language to carry it. and jokes are all about expectation and subversion and timing. a joke can fall so flat if that timing is off. and - i don't know, i'm obsessed with comics, as if they're some kind of form of visual poetry. it's taken for granted, i think. it's taken for granted.

i think you become more restricted the more dimensions you introduce - so - writing is entirely free. you can do WHATEVER you want, all by yourself, without needing to rely on the quality of your art software or the actors you have at your disposal or anything - you can conjure any visual you like. comics - more challenging, you're limited by your artistic ability but again - you're not restricted by voice cast - god, i love being able to conjure any voice at all in my head for the boys. i think if i was restricted by voice actors i'd have to write them differently, et cetera et cetera... i'd be dealing with VAs and saying "actually. your delivery is all wrong. i have to rewrite the joke." - i'm so particular about these things, you have no idea.

i remember the first time i watched the deadpool movie after having read the original script over and over YEARS prior and having heard it play out in my head in the most hilarious of ways and then. hearing ryan's delivery of those jokes and thinking "oh. it's not that funny actually."

sorry ryan. it might've been funnier if i hadn't read the script already and hadn't already had the movie play out in my brain way funnier than how you did it. sorry. my brain is a better cinema.

something i also love about print vs film - i've had this problem with a lot of adaptations - i despise film adaptations of books i love, just because - something is so sullied about having so many hands in the pot. actors. camera men. producers. directors. all these people - when - what i loved about the book was feeling close to the author. it's just me and him. we're together, intimately. and all of that intimacy gets lost when you know there's a huge film crew behind it.

kind of weird. i love reading a book and just, giggling over the pages, like it's a joke between me and the author. i don't know, i'm a weird little saddo who craves intimacy. so i like the intimacy of it being a one-man show. i love things where i can feel close to the creator. i hope that's why people like my things too. and it's why i like my things. i sometimes think "ouugh. why can't i work for marvel" but i think about how - i'm lucky i get to create what i want to create without having to compromise or answer to editorial. and what i create can always be unapologetically me. and that means more. that means so much more.

[gelly-fsh]

Diary of a (smitten) Mariachi

I've been having all types of thoughts about Mariachi James Potter, like you cannot honestly tell me that he would not thrive in it. I think his grandfather would have been a famous Mariachi and he just taught James how to sing and how to play the guitar.

When he was in Uni, he didnt want to depend solely in his parents money so he decided to put his grandpa's lessons in good use and start a small business out of it with a couple of friends and cousins that lived in the same city. They got pretty famous, especially when his cousin Mary decided to do a YouTube channel and a Tiktok account for the band.

And look, in the 3 years he has been doing this, he has come across some weird and scandalous shit. Until now his favorite was when a dude hired them to serenade his wife (apparently they had a fight) but when the woman didn't appear in her balcony the guy was so mad he asked them to come with him to go and serenade his mistress instead.

Yeah, fun times. At least that girl did love it.

Today, they had a morning job for a birthday. The guy who hired him (Barty, if he remembers correctly) gave him a rundown of what he wanted to happen, and James knew almost instantly this was one of those prank serenades. He hoped this Regulus guy didn't beat the shit out of anyone for waking him up with guitars and trumpets.

When they arrived to the house address, he could see they guy that he must assume is Barty waiting for them outside with a mischievous grin on his face.

"I gather that you're James Potter no?" The guy asked

"Pleasure to meet you" James said, shaking his hand "are you Barty?"

"The one and only" Barty confirmed. He quickly explained that his friend Regulus would be waking up in half an hour, so they had to be quick going upstairs (the house was fucking gigantic). When they were outside the door, all of them started to prepare their instruments and do a last check up on their clothes (Mary fixed James hat bc apparently it got crooked). He could see Barty taking out his phone, most probably to start recording everything, and then they went inside the room.

From the first notes of the trumpets and the violins, James could see clearly how the boy that was before sleeping so peacefully jump up so high he almost rolled out of the bed. But when he raised his head to see them, James breath hitched in astonishment.

That had to be the most prettiest boy he has ever seen.

Even bleary-eyed, with a dry trail of drool on his chin, and sheet marks in his cheeks, James could only think that he would really like to sing every love song ever invented to him, isn't that crazy?

"Estas son las mañanitas que cantaba el Rey David..." (This are the mornings that the King David sang about) James started as normally, he has sang Las Mañanitas a thousand times, the Vicente Fernandez version being one of the most popular, but James just didn't want to sing that one, it was to impersonal, so he just decided to throw the protocol out of the window and sing the version he really wanted.

"A los muchachos bonitos, se las cantamos aquí" (To the pretty boys, we sing it to them here)

"Si el Sereno de la esquina me quisiera hacer favor, de apagar su linternita mientras que pasa mi Amor" (If the watchman in the corner would be so kind, of turning off his little lamp while my Love passes by) He could feel the gazes of all the band members piercing through his skull, and for a moment James thought that maybe he shouldn't have sang the more romantic version of Las Mañanitas with a band full if family members and friends who could understand Spanish, he was fucked for the next family reunion, but Regulus face when he saw him sing made it worth it.

Remnants of sleep still filled his eyes, and when the song started he was in the middle of cursing Bartys whole bloodline out, but when he locked eyes with him, James could perfectly see how Regulus entire face turned into a beautiful shade of cherry red. He just sat in his bed with his gaze fixed on James while he sang about birds singing and the Moon hiding out, giving way to the beautiful morning that resided in his eyes.

"Si no estas enamorado, enamoráte de mi" (if you're not in love, fall in love with me) he sang with a small smile in his face, and he delighted himself by how Regulus face went even more red.

He sang the rest of the song effortlessly, and when he finished, James and all of band did a small bow in Regulus direction.

"Happy Birthday Mr. Regulus" James said with a soft smile on his face.

"Eh- ehm thank you" Regulus responded, sounding awfully flustered.

"Well that was no fun, you didn't even make that much of a fuss" Barty whined on the other side of the room "I bring you your favorite Mariachi as a present and you couldn't even give me more drama?, please Reg" James could exactly pinpoint the moment Barty realized he fucked up, did Regulus already knew James?

"BARTY!" Regulus hissed out, throwing a pillow that landed directly in Bartys face.

"You are a fan of ours?" James asked surprised, Regulus type was not exactly their normal audience

"You could say that..." Regulus mumbled

"He has watched all of the videos where you are and-" another pillow was thrown to Bartys face, the beautiful color red coming backbto Regulus cheeks.

"Well I am honored" James chuckled softly, before deciding that he might as well be bold, even if it was deeply unprofessional "Its not all days I find out such a beautiful boy is a fan of what I do"

The compliment got him exactly what he wanted, which was a small gasp and more of that beautiful blushing, oh he was down bad. Regulus opened his mouth to say something, but Mary used that moment to (rudely) interrupt them

"I am deeply sorry to interrupt, but today we have another job in the other side of the city, so we should get going" Mary interjected softly, looking a mixture of amused and regretful (as she should be, why is he interrupting hid attempts to woo the love of his life???) "Happy Birthday again Mr. Regulus"

All the band echoed the congratulations, before softly taking the instruments and leaving the room. James almost wished Barty had payed for more than one song. Mournfully, he gave Regulus one last glance before tipping down his hat and saying "Happy Birthday, Amapolita dorada" before leaving the room.

While going down the stairs, he was being teased by Mary and the others about how obvious his little crush was and how annoyed they where that he changed the song version at the last minute (they were not really, but they do sure liked to whine).

It was not until he was going out the door that he heard frantical footsteps going down the stairs, and James just stood there at the door, hope filling his heart when he saw Regulus disheveled form looking at him.

"Listen, I probably am reading the situation wrong but-" Regulus said breathlessly "If you like, wanted to go out or something..."

James never accepted something so fast in his life "absolutely, I want to see you again"

He could hear Regulus breath hitch, breathing out a soft "Oh, well" before pressing a piece of paper in James chest "it's my number, text me ok?"

"Oh I will" James smile was blinding, he got the interest and the number of one of the most handsome guys he has ever seen, and he was not wasting this golden opportunity so easily. In an act of chivalry (and maybe stupidity) he softly took Regulus hand and slowly took it to his lips, leaving a soft kiss in the dorsum of his hand "Until we meet again, Regulus"

"Until then, James" Regulus sounded breathless, and James smirked in delight at the knowledge that Regulus did know him before the performance.

Since then, everyone could see that James Potter sang love songs with a bit more sweetness to it, as if really really knew what he was singing about. With the beautiful muse that he had, how could he not?

[darsynia]

Just Right | Ch 2

(Steve Rogers x F!Reader, post-Ultron Multichapter)

gif by @dailystevegifs

Summary:

You’ve been in love with Steve Rogers for at least a year, but he treats you the same way he treats every other member of the team– with respect, but nothing more. It takes an inter-dimensional mistake and a whole second, more assertive, actually interested Steve for you to realize that you don’t want just any version of Steve Rogers– you want the one you’ve been pining for all this time.

Length: 3,446

FIC MASTERLIST | LAST CHAPTER | NEXT CHAPTER

Dedicated to @ronearoundblindly who is the bestest

Excerpt:

“Starting out or just getting back?” Steve’s voice asks.

You smile without turning around. “Can’t you tell from the damp, bedraggled hair?”

“I would never think to comment on such a thing,” he says gallantly.

“A king among men,” you pronounce.

“If so, I’m an absent ruler.” His tone makes you turn to look over your shoulder. Steve’s looking down at the ground with a wistful look on his face. He’s wearing sweatpants and a tank top, and the hem of the latter is folded, giving you a glimpse of the jut of his hipbone above the low waistband of the sweats. 

Your mouth goes dry before you turn back around, hoping he doesn’t mind if you have no idea what he just said. 

Chapter Two

You stand there staring at Gold Steve for three whole seconds before your stomach growls loudly. Using the poker face Natasha taught you, you keep your expression and your gaze steady and get to watch as his attempt at ‘stoic’ starts to fracture.

“Go ahead,” you say, pressing your lips together to stop your own laughter. “It’s my own fault for waiting so long to eat.”

“I’m no hypocrite,” he says, backing up and bowing a hand toward the microwave. “I ate late, too. Got caught up with your Steve and Tony, trying to figure out the thought process that led Stark to invent the device that sent me here. They’ve got me a room and a badge for access, but until we get an inkling about how to reverse it, I’ll do what I can to help out your Steve.”

You clench your jaw ruthlessly to prevent a reaction to his repeated use of ‘your Steve,’ leaning to sniff your soup with the door of the microwave blocking his view of you. When you straighten back up, though, Gold Steve is standing there with oven mitts.

“It was pretty hot when I got mine out, and I’m guessing you don’t have any healing abilities.”

“Is that a fishing expedition, Rogers?”

He follows you out of the kitchen to a table, and hands you the spoon you forgot. “Well, you’re the only different thing I probably won’t risk unbalancing the universe to discover, so, yes.”

All of the previous heart-fluttering things he’s said to you suddenly lose all meaning. You choke out a weak-sounding “Oh,” and focus entirely on your soup, even though you’ve lost your appetite.

“I feel like I just watched a flower wilt in real time,” Gold Steve says, sitting down across from you. You desperately wish for a book you could hold up between you, anything to hide from the discerning look he’s giving you. Suddenly, he pulls in a sharp breath-- he’s just figured out why you’re upset. “That’s not what I--” Breaking off, he reaches his hand across the table, palm down, like a tiny little white flag begging for your attention. 

You deliberately eat another spoonful of soup; you’re no one’s entertainment, least of all this oddly open version of the man you love. Infuriatingly, he doesn’t take the hint, but instead twiddles his fingers. It’s stubborn, ridiculous, and it works, damn him. You look up, but you refuse to smile.

“I implied you were an object of last resort.” You don’t let yourself move a muscle. He tips his head to the side slowly, sincerity arching his eyebrows as he says, “I promise you, that’s not the case.”

You’re suddenly possessed by some strange spirit of determined peacemaking. “It would make sense, wouldn’t it? You have no way of knowing what you could alter! If your version of Stark can send you across universal lines, even a casual comment might give ours any number of ideas.”

He’s nodding. “I’ll admit I’ve been locked down pretty tight since I got here.”

For a few glorious seconds, his phrasing reminds you of the specific close cut of his uniform pants from the day before. You’d never have been able to get away with a design like that! Everyone would have figured out your feelings immediately.

“So you’ve watched your words with everyone but me?”

Gold Steve’s little frown of acquiescence is familiar and bittersweet. “I deserved that. What I mean to say is, I got lucky that the person who’s different is you.”

You’d snuck another spoonful of soup as he was talking, and now you choke on it a little bit. “Oh my god, did you, like, lose a bet and have to take a pick-up lines course from the Anthony Edward Stark School of Superheroes Who Can’t Date Good and Want To Learn How To Do Other Things Good Too?”

You’re not sure what you were expecting as a reaction to that, but it wasn’t this. Gold Steve’s body tenses up visibly and he looks down, a distinct look of regret gracing his features.

“That was out of line, I’m sorry,” you whisper, getting up and rushing toward the kitchen with your mostly-uneaten bowl. You find the ziploc bag it was in previously, snag a sharpie, and put your name on it, so it’s not wasted. The soup you’ve already eaten is being broken down by your peculiar mix of remorse, worry, and stomach acids. When you shut the freezer door, you see that Gold Steve is standing in the doorway to the kitchen, a soft smile on his face.

“You didn’t need to run away. It was a good joke.”

“It was a harsh joke.”

“I deserved it,” he says, and when you scoff and move to rinse out your bowl, he elaborates. “I said I was sorry for making you uncomfortable, and then I did it again. You fought back. Seems fair to me.”

You mutter something about being a weirdo who can’t take a compliment, but he’s still Steve Rogers, so he pushes back on that, too.

“I’d ask you where you got the idea that it’s unusual or concerning for someone who looks like me to compliment you, but somehow I don’t think I need to,” he says gently.

“That’s gossip, and I have to get going,” you say. The expression on your face has to be forbidding, because Gold Steve moves out of the way and doesn’t stop you as you leave the kitchen. 

Even though you have more time left for your break, you head toward your desk in the testing room. You feel a qualm of conscience, but the idea of talking about someone you care so deeply for behind his back, even with a version of himself… it makes you sick, truth or not.

You step into the darkened room, let the door fall shut, and lean up against the wall for a few minutes, letting your breathing patterns and anxious mind settle. It’s been less than twenty-four hours since Gold Steve walked into your universe, and you’re a mess. Sleep last night was restless, full of dreams you can’t remember except for the uneasy feeling you were left with when you woke up.

The unbalanced feeling just gets worse the more you talk to Gold Steve, and you’re terrified about what that means. Your feelings for Steve Rogers have increased steadily the longer you’ve known him, with no active encouragement. What does it mean that you are so disconcerted by his lookalike? 

That thought will set your feet on another anxiety spiral, so you picture your favorite image of puppies and flick on the light.

Across the room, you see a tall figure leaning up against the wall. When the two of you make eye contact, he lifts his hand and does an embarrassed little wave.

“What the heck are you doing here in the dark, Rogers?” you ask, hoping like hell a) he’s the Steve from your universe, and b) if he isn’t, that you don’t have the power to somehow conjure a version of Steve just by thinking about him, because that could get really awkward really fast, especially at night.

“I had some time, thought I’d kill it making sure nothing comes walking through the walls in here again.”

“In the dark?”

He pushes off from the wall and shows you the cell phone in his hand. “Tony keeps giving me crap for not feeling entirely comfortable with these yet. Figured the dark might be disorienting for any intruder, at least until you came back.” You must look confused, because he adds, “I’d feel better if you weren’t alone in here, at least not until we make the room more secure.”

Your earlier concern prompts you to say, “Your counterpart let slip that they don’t have an Avengers Compound. Unless Stark was testing a dimensional portal in the middle of the woods in upstate New York, I doubt anyone else will pop up here.” Steve’s nodding, and impulsively, you add, “Given the number of security risks all over the world, we’d need to have about a million Captain Americas to cover them all!”

“That may be true, but I would want to go after a member of my team if they were lost like that,” he says, strolling to the middle of the room.

“And leave your universe without their Captain America?” you tease, settling in at your desk.

“I prefer to think of it as giving my teammate a better shot at getting back home. Speaking of which, Sam told me how you escorted him out, when the other guy showed up.” 

Steve’s voice has gotten steadily closer, but you’ve been carefully arranging things at your desk as you listen, thus avoiding the look that’s probably on his face. Your desk faces the room instead of the wall, though, and he’s caught on. Steve walks over and stands directly in front of you, resting his hand on the object you were nervously adjusting. Your fingers are separated by barely a centimeter, and you realize you’re staring at their proximity when he clears his throat.

Reluctantly, you look up at him.

“You want to tell me why your first instinct was to get Sam out of there and handle things yourself?” His eyes are kind, and he does sound concerned, but he’s still questioning your judgment, and that raises your hackles a little.

Instead of just wishing he had more faith in your decision making process, you decide to show him why he should.

“Sam’s not a super soldier, and his armor isn’t stored in here, it’s in the armory. Following him over to the door got me close to the panic button without agitating the intruder,” you point out. “I imagine you watched the footage?” He nods thoughtfully, his posture straightening. “I walked straight from the door over to the lockers, where the prototypes are.” You leave it go at that, because you’re not trying to lecture him, just show you’re not trying to be a martyr.

He’s chuckling ruefully, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “Okay, point taken. I’m sorry I underestimated you.” The undercurrent of relief in his voice warms you.

“I don’t want a world without Sam Wilson any more than I’d want a world without Steve Rogers,” you say, just to twist the knife.

“Everyone’s contribution is important,” Steve emphasizes, and you avoid rolling your eyes. You were never one of the people worried about credit; every time something you made helps the person you made it for, that’s enough credit for you. “I’m sure he misses his team as much as they miss him. All of them,” he adds, nodding his chin in your direction as he backpedals to go stand with his back to the wall again.

“Not me,” you say breezily, pulling out a piece of sketch paper. Wanda Maximoff doesn’t have armor, and she probably doesn’t really want armor, but that doesn’t mean you can’t mock something up.

“‘Dine.” Steve sounds exasperated.

“I’m pulling your leg. He says I’m not in his universe.”

There’s silence for a long while, long enough that you look up from the spiky vest you’re idly sketching. Steve looks lost in thought, brows furrowed. You toy with the idea of trying to get him to leave, but decide against it. You’ve always wanted this space to feel like a comfortable, safe place to try new things. If Steve Rogers wants to guard you from an undetectable, unpreventable new threat, you’re fine with that.

That night you don’t have nightmares, but you do dream about Steve’s hands. It’s as if your brain has been hiding a photo album and is now excitedly showing you the result of a year’s work.

Steve running his hand along the chestpiece of the first armor you designed for him.

The crowbar that’s winched open your stuck elevator doors being replaced by Steve’s hands, which then wrench the doors wide with ease.

The moment when you realized you actually loved the man, as you stood nearby at a party and watched Steve run his hand through his hair, smiling at something Stark said.

Countless times when he’s gotten your attention with gentle fingers on the back of your hand, a knuckle tap on your desk, resting his hand next to yours on a railing, stretching his arm across the table to wiggle his fing--

You’d been laying in bed half-asleep, waiting for the alarm to go off, but now you’re wide awake-- because that last image? It’s Gold Steve.

“Absolutely not,” you say aloud. You draw the line at conflating the two. Groaning aloud, you realize what you’re going to have to do.

A week later, Stark’s pretty sure he’s onto something, which you only know about because Sam told you at the meeting you two had scheduled to finalize the changes to his gear. You’ve spent the whole week to yourself, not really on purpose, it just worked out that way. The feigned cold took care of a few days, and after that, you’d joked you were catching up on a tv series you’d been looking forward to. The strange part is, while you never really tried to see Steve every day, you usually did, and the longer it’s been, the more it feels like something’s missing.

Well, your minifridge is full of takeout leftovers, you’ve gotten two weeks’ worth of work done in half as much time, and your heart is full of stupid ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ bullshit, but at least you haven’t compromised your principles.

The weather today is supposed to be fantastic, so you get up early and lace up your trainers to take a dewy walk around the complex. You’re not a jogger per se, more of an ‘every three months, I forget why I’m not a jogger, and need a wheezing, limping reminder’ nature enthusiast.

You’re strolling along the back near the woods, reminding yourself how to breathe, when you see a figure jogging towards you. It doesn’t take long to recognize Steve in his typical work-out garb, those dark blue athletic pants and gray t-shirt. In full summer, he swaps to shorts (it’s around then that many of the compound staff find reasons to be outside around jogging time), but spring hasn’t quite shifted away from the bite of the winter wind yet.

Even though you’ve been deliberately avoiding the Steves, you slow your pace to prolong your moment of admiration. As it happens, he slows down too, and by the time you approach each other, your heart is full and your smile is genuine. It doesn’t hurt to be friendly to Gold Steve, and even though you hate to admit it, you do like the way he looks at you.

“Been awhile, Brigandine,” Gold Steve admonishes you, pulling up one leg behind himself to grab the foot and tug.

“Oh, I’m a slave to my stories,” you joke. When Stark had complained about your absences, Sam had told him which show you were knee-deep into, and ever since then, he’s been making soap opera jokes in texts and emails.

“Yeah, well, you’ve only got One Life To Live,” Gold Steve says seriously, and you both crack up. “You’re okay, though?” he asks once your giggles die down, and damn, there’s the longing again.

“Yeah, no worries,” you say. It isn’t until right now that you realize: it’s not like someone’s going to come get you when they figure out how to send this man home. “Had some things to think through, and this was a good time to do it.”

It’s the closest you’ve come to alluding to your feelings for ‘your Steve,’ and you feel like you can see understanding, if not full comprehension, in Gold Steve’s admiring expression. To deflect away from that potential awkwardness, you look around you, nodding toward the woods.

“I will completely lose my momentum if I stop now, but hey, enjoy this while you can, right? I was glad to hear from Sam that Stark might be close to a breakthrough. See ya!” 

You smile and wave like a complete idiot, opting at the last minute for the steady jog for your ignoble exit, instead of trying to actually run. There’s a non-zero chance this man will turn around and see you fall against the wall after 200 feet and heroically come back to help, and at that point, you’ll be looking to invent an interdimensional portal to open up underneath your feet.

When you turn the corner, you allow yourself a single look back, and see to your surprise that Gold Steve is still in sight, having slowed to a light jog himself.

About twenty minutes later, you’ve done a whole circuit, and most of it has been at a pace faster than a slow walk. You grab the damp towel you’d left draped by the rear door and wipe off your face and neck. It feels great; it’s been resting in the shade, so the wetness is refreshing rather than gross. 

Instead of heading right in, you enjoy the light breeze coming off the treeline and lean on the stone fence, letting its heat soak into you. The door opens behind you, and you hope like hell it’s not Nat; she caught you doing this once, last fall, and the routine she sent you through (‘come learn this with me, it’ll be fun’) taught you that you don’t have to know you have a muscle for it to hurt.

“Starting out or just getting back?” Steve’s voice asks.

You smile without turning around. “Can’t you tell from the damp, bedraggled hair?”

“I would never think to comment on such a thing,” he says gallantly.

“A king among men,” you pronounce.

“If so, I’m an absent ruler.” His tone makes you turn to look over your shoulder. Steve’s looking down at the ground with a wistful look on his face. He’s wearing sweatpants and a tank top, and the hem of the latter is folded, giving you a glimpse of the jut of his hipbone above the low waistband of the sweats. 

Your mouth goes dry before you turn back around, hoping he doesn’t mind if you have no idea what he just said. 

Steve mistakes your quick movement for unhappiness, it seems. “Sorry, it’s just-- I can’t help but imagine what they’re going through back there. Wondering where I am, inventing God knows what to get me back.”

Your entire blood volume crystalizes into ice at once, and you taste metal in your mouth. “What did you just say?”

Gold Steve (because, that’s who it is, there’s absolutely no doubt, which means… -!) comes over and leans a hip on the stone fence, facing you. “I know showing up here was an accident, but I feel responsible. There’s nothing I can do over here but take up space.” He looks down at his clothes and huffs out a frustrated breath. “Literally. I only fit into my own clothing.” He stops and leans over, slowly moving his hand back and forth about six inches away from your face. “Earth to Brigandine. You… do still call it ‘Earth’ here, right?”

“Very funny,” you say. “No, I’m-- I’m just… If just this once, my stupid he-- brain would shut up about the ways I’ve possibly screwed up, that would be great.” You widen your eyes and shrug, and the crinkled-eyes smile he offers in response makes that heart skip despite yourself. Which is the problem, the reason you were staying the heck away from these men. At least the words ‘head’ and ‘heart’ sound close enough that you haven’t given too much away. You hope. “Shit,” you sigh.

“Can I help?”

“Nope, not unless you want to tell me this is all a big prank involving you, yourself, and I, and I didn’t just mix the two of you up!” You pull the towel up from your shoulders and drape it over your face.

“Why would that be a--” Gold Steve falls silent. “Are you-- do you have feelings for him?”

You’d been hoping to avoid that question, but the thing that soothes it is that Gold Steve says ‘him.’ He knows that there are differences, he knows this isn’t his universe, and that’s how you know that there’s no trick. The Steve that you saw jogging earlier, the one who looked at you like someone beautiful? It was your Steve. The man you love.

Next chapter...

[lwh-writing]

Girl Genius Reaction #2

Hi, hey, been a hot second since I've done one of these but here we go!

I love that the Heterodyne boys have been elevated to this almost folklore-like state where everyone's got a story about them that ranges from "mostly true" to "entirely made up"

Also, Gil's Dad was adventure buddies with the Heterodynes???? I know Theo said he made the story up, but considering it was shown to us like a flashback, I assume there is at least a few kernels of truth to it all

I think I clocked the possible Von Pinn connection. As all the students claim Von Pinn is modeled off of and/or secretly Lucrezia Mongfish (whoever the hell that is), and Lucrezia was name-dropped in Theo's story/flashback and on the receiving end of one of the Heterodyne's love confessions, I'm assuming Von Pinn is thus modeled off of and/or secretly Agatha's mother or aunt. I wonder if that'll ever come up later. Either way, it's nice to know I'm not crazy for thinking Von Pinn and Agatha looked way too similar

Also, I know Agatha probably took the chance to change out of the pants and into a more comfortable skirt while Theo had everyone distracted, but I kind of like the idea that she can just randomly and inexpensively modify her clothes at will with no one noticing

The Baron being concerned about the hive engine being "eighteen years old or brand new?" really caught my attention. Larger scope villain entering the chat? 👀

Theo & co. running into Gil and there's an obvious disconnect about whom hasn't kept in touch with whom, re: Gil saying they'd only ever come to him if they need something vs. Theo saying Gil hasn't answered any of their letters. Betting money that the Baron has been withholding Gil's mail and trying to isolate him for whatever reason.

Whomst is Othar Tryggvassen? Hello? Random man just suspended over the void, every limb chained, giant green globe on his head? WTF???

I do love Agatha's reaction though. "Is it right to leave a fellow sentient strung up like this?" "Well, that depends upon the nature of the experiment..." I love this mad scientist so much

I'm also really loving the Jaegers (Jaegerkin? Jaegermonsters?). They're all so full of personality. And the tension with the Lackya is very delicious

Love the Jaegerkin generals inviting Agatha to supper, saying "It's good, no bugs!" only for another general to say in the most dejected voice "...no bugs?" 🥺

Also, it looks like the Jaegers are officially figuring out that Agatha's a Heterodyne! Gil may believe/know Agatha is a Spark (has the Spark?), but the Jaegers are the only ones connecting the dots to the Heterodyne question. Wonder if they'll tell someone or keep it to themselves.

Also, Jaegers playing matchmaker? "What do you think of the young master?" "What kind of question is that?" "Well it would make things really simple if--" What's their angle there? Hm....

Speaking of ships, I am sending Andre the Jaegermonster to horny jail. I'm with Agatha; Von Pinn doesn't sound interested

Flashback with Uncle Barry was very cute. He obviously didn't want to repress Agatha's powers, but it was probably a matter of safety

Agatha sleep-inventing is very cool, but why's her little sentient robot(s) hiding from her?

Von Zinzer is giving some insight on the larger world. Apparently, there's a series of wars going on? I know the Baron is a ruler and is keeping the school kids as hostages, but I didn't know it's a continuous conquest of what seems to be Europe.

Also, side note, do we ever see the rest of the world? Africa, Asia, Australia, North & South America? I know deep in my bones that this world's version of China would fuck severely.

Dr. Dim and his bears are also very cute. Loved the moment between him and Agatha

The fight between Von Zinzer & Agatha was very fun. As was Gil hiring Agatha on the spot. The friendship is growing!

And finally, the talking cat! My oh my, how will this go from here? It's very obviously sentient, and based on the website's banner, a main character to boot. But what is it? A chimera? A rogue experiment? Someone trapped in a cat's body? Guess I'll find out

Overall: Still really liking the story! It's got me hooked so far and it's building really well on the premise. The story is still obviously finding its footing, but it's still good!

Continued 7.5/10

[whatever-you-can-give-me]

i'm sure you've talked about this kinda thing before but what do you think about people saying, like, "stampede wolfwood characterization is bad and doesn't even feel like wolfwood"?

this feels like bait to get me to say something inflammatory, because my opinion on people dismissing stampede wolfwood out of hand is definitely something i've posted before, but i fucking love to talk about my opinions, so. [cracks knuckles]

basically. 1. he's a different version of the character in a different set of circumstances, of course he's going to be different. and 2. the thing most people imagine in their heads as wolfwood... is not the wolfwood that appears in any canon, lol.

i don't think that's even a notable observation. a lot of the trigun fandom is the "the vash and wolfwood collectively hallucinated out of a blend of all three canons, It's Free Real Estate" fandom now. it's a tale as old as time. fandom as we currently know it was built on slash and cherrypicking from canon.

i'm not going to be the fun police about it, or act like my way of engaging with trigun (keeping the individual canons separate and distinct in my head, analyzing small details, thinking really hard about the characters and the circumstances of creation) is the 'correct' or the only way to have fun in a fandom. like, i think i am engaging more with the canon, but some people just aren't interested in the actual specific details of canon as more than a jumping off point, and while i don't get it, i support making your own fun. go wild.

but, man, there sure is something. interesting. about how the platonic ideal of wolfwood that's been developed by the Vashwood Fandom completely diverges from wolfwood's actual personality in canon (it's happened to vash too, but that's an entirely different can of worms) and then people get irritated at the actual canons for wolfwood not being the guy in their head. stampede especially, because stampede wolfwood is a traumatized disaster, and that doesn't really work for the most common flavor of vashwood, where vash is the one who needs reassurance and comfort.

i just.... yall, wolfwood is so fucking awkward. he's always been awkward and messy and unsure of himself outside of the two specific situations he can manage (combat and dealing with children). stampede didn't invent the fact that he has no idea what he's doing and doesn't really know how to act around other adults because he's spent most of his life a deeply repressed assassin. i really have no idea where the idea of him as suave and romantic and self-assured came from...

anyway. i'm not going to tell anyone they shouldn't have the fun they're having. it's fandom. god knows there are more important things to worry about. but i have been noticing some patterns, is all.

tl;dr: anyone is welcome to dislike stampede wolfwood if they want, but wolfwood has always been most of the things i see people criticize about stampede wolfwood's characterization. stampede wolfwood is just harder to fit into the box fandom built for him.

[ultravioletqueen]

Thanks to @theloremaniac I discovered Anaq, the first daughter of Adam and Eve in Islam and the first witch in this religion, she caught my attention because of the description of her appearance: born with two heads and claws instead of normal nails, she was also the first person to die in Islam, being killed by a lion sent by God after having sex before marriage.

I imagined what it would be like to adapt it to a possible rewrite of Hazbin Hotel (since I plan to do redesigns very soon) and my original Instagram story (bloody reverie/eden) and I thought about making her the outcast daughter of the Eden family, she was horribly affected for the apple (eve ate it while she was pregnant without knowing it) causing her this strange appearance and a great affinity with dark magic.

In this version, Anaq had a romantic relationship with Arham, a young traveler who became very interested in magic and went to Anaq so she could teach him. However, they soon saw each other as more than friends. Arham had a great thirst for adventure and He wanted to explore the world with her, they both had different ideas about religion and God, neither of them believed much in the existence of God and that's why they didn't bother to follow the commandments.

This did not go unnoticed by God and, feeling extremely offended by Anaq's lack of faith, he decided to punish her by sending a giant lion that ended up eating her alive.

Arham, with a broken heart, decides to take his son Uj/og to his birthplace in Bashun, where he would be crowned king by its inhabitants, but his throne felt empty because he did not have Anaq by his side. However, he decided to raise his son in the best possible way until the day Arham died of cardiac attack when uj/og was 12 years old and he was left in the care of his maternal family who helped him in his royal duties when he was crowned king at the age of 15.

uj/og grew up as a hyperactive child who is usually very emotional and impulsive, but who has a great sense of justice and really wanted to be as good a king as his father and greatly admires his mother's figure even though he couldn't really know her.

uj/og dies being murdered by Moses when he is 19 years old and reaches heaven with his father.

I have two possible scenarios for anaq:

1) CANON:Anaq is in heaven since God recognizes that he was too hard on her and gives her the opportunity to reunite with her lover and son, with whom she is happily reunited. She keeps in touch with her entire family (yep, even Cain) and visits them regularly.

2) NO CANON/SWAP AU:Anaq is sentenced to hell not only for her beliefs but also for her practices of dark magic, she ends up fusing with Roo over time (before she was part of her in her second head as a Siamese twin), she could not reunite with her family and is very bitter about it, she is a very sad and lonely person who does not usually leave her domain.

Anaq in general has a rather discouraged personality, she is introverted and does not usually like the idea of ​​socializing with others unless it is strictly necessary, otherwise she prefers to stay in the shadows and not attract attention (which makes her hate her appearance, since it makes her a target for the gazes and prejudices of others).

Anaq was a figure of protection and understanding for her sibilings, since she did not want her sibilings to grow up being victims of the same prejudices that she had to endure, she took on the role of second mother in general and for this reason her brothers and sisters have her in high esteem and do not let anyone speak ill of her even though she is in hell in some lines.

In more general things, Anaq really likes to study about medicinal practices and would definitely be fascinated with modern medicine.

She also likes to sew a lot, she probably invented the first needle and thread and used to be the one who made clothes for the family. She also loves embroidery and has made beautiful embroideries that have taken her forever to finish but she is extremely satisfied with them (she probably has an tapestry of her lover and son).

(Español)

gracias a @theloremaniac descubri a anaq, la primera hija de adam y eva en el islam y la primera bruja en esta religion, ella llamo mi atencion por la descripción de su apariencia: nacida con dos cabezas y garras en vez de uñas normales, ella tambien fue la primera persona en morir en el islam siendo asesinada por un leon enviado por dios depsues de haber tenido sexo antes del matrimonio.

me imagine como seria adaptarla a un posible rewrite de hazbin hotel(ya que planeo hacer rediseños muy pronto)y mi historia original de instagram(bloody reverie/eden) y pense en hacerla la hija marginada de la familia del eden, ella fue afectada horriblemente por la manzana(eva la comio estando embarazada sin saberlo) causandole esta apariencia extraña y una gran afinidad con la magia oscura.

en esta versión anaq tuvo una relación sentimental con un arham, un joven viajero que se interesó mucho en la magia y fue con anaq para que ella le enseñase, sin embargo pronto se vieron como mas que amigos, arham tenia gran sed por la aventura y queria explorar el mundo junto a ella, ambos tenian ideas diferentes sobre la religion y dios, ninguno de los dos creia mucho en la existencia del mismo y por eso no se molestaban en seguir los mandamientos.

esto no paso desapercibido por dios y al sentirse extremadamente ofendido por la falta de fe de anaq decidio castigarla mandando un leon gigante que la termino comiendo viva.

arham con el corazon roto decide llevarse a su hijo uj/og a su lugar de nacimiento en bashun, donde seria coronaso rey por sus habitantes, pero su trono se sentia vacio al no tener a anaq a su lado, sin embargo decidió criar a su hijo de la mejor forma posible hasta el dia que arham fallecio por un paro cardiaco cuando uj/og tiene 12 años y este queda al cuidado de su familia materna que le ayudan en sus labores reales cuando es coronado rey a los 15 años.

uj/og crecio como un niño hiperactivo que suele ser muy emocional e impulsivo, pero que tiene un gran sentido de la justicia y realmente quiere ser tan buen rey como su padre y admira muchísimo a la figura de su madre pese a que no la pudo conocer de verdad.

uj/og muere siendo asesinado por moses cuando tiene 19 años y llega al cielo junto a su padre.

tengo dos posibles escenarios para anaq:

1)CANON:anaq esta en el cielo ya que dios reconoce que fue demasiado duro con ella y le da la oportunidad de reunirse con su amado e hijo, con quien se reune felizmente. ella mantiene contacto con toda su familia(sip, incluso cain) y los visita regularmente.

2) NO CANON/SWAP AU:anaq es sentenciada al infierno no solo por sus creencias sino tambien por sus practicas de magia oscura, ella se termina fusionando con roo con el tiempo(antes formaba parte de ella en su segunda cabeza como un gemelo siames), ella no pudo reunirse con su familia y es muy amargada al respecto, es una persona muy triste y solitaria que no suele salir de su dominio.

anaq en general tiene una personalidad bastante desanimada, ella es introvertida y no suele gustarle la idea de socializar con otros a no ser que sea estrictamente necesario, de lo contrario ella prefiere quedarse en las sombras y no llamar la atencion(lo cual hace que odie su apariencia, ya que la hace blanco de las miradas y prejuicios de otros).

anaq fue para sus hermanos una figura de protección y comprensión, ya que ella no queria que sus hermanos crecieran siendo victimas de los mismos prejuicios que ella tuvo que soportar, ella tomo un rol de segunda madre en general y por esto sus hermanos y hermanas la tienen en alta estima y no dejan que nadie hable mal de ella aun estando en el infierno en algunas lineas.

en cosas mas generales anaq le gusta mucho estudiar sobre practicas medicinales y definitivamente estaria fascinada con la medicina moderna.

a ella tambien le gusta mucho coser, probablemente ella invento la primera aguja e hilo y solia ser quien hacia la ropa para la familia. tambien ama el bordado y a hecho bordados hermosos que le han costado una eternidad en terminar pero que esta sumamente satisfecha con ellos(probablemente tenga un bordado de su amado e hijo).